June 14, 2010

Recently, I’ve received a number of questions about how to enforce Asset Categorization. For example, you may want to require the following categorization before the asset can be approved:

NOTE: If the images appear fuzzy, just click on them to get a clearer view.

The first place you might look is the Asset Type Constraints :

And since there is no section on categorization constraints, there appears to be no control.

You may have noticed the tab supporting automatic categorization, which is a cool topic I will cover another time.

However, back to the point of this post. RAM provides lifecycle policies to help enforce rules for categorization. These are managed as part of the Lifecycle configuration:

There are two related to Categorization:

These can be set to run at specific states and at certain times, such as when the asset enters a state. Yet while policies might prevent you from changing the state of an asset, they do not prevent you from submitting a new asset to the repository.

The first one can add/remove categories explicitly:

The second can help enforce the rule that a category is selected:

So now, when an asset is created, it can be enforced that categorization must be applied before it can transition to the next state:

1. Someone submits an Asset (the policy doesn’t stop this)

2. When they try to move the state, the policy fails:

You can View results to see why the policy failed:

Lifecycle policies can be very powerful, and with a little creativity you can automate many of your business rules.